Why Does The Bladder Rupture Rather Than Empty If It Gets Too Full?

[LisaL]

Seems counter intuitive
Google search Tycho Brahe

 

"According to Kepler's first hand account, Tycho had refused to leave the  banquet to relieve himself because it would have been a breach of  etiquette.[23][24] After he had returned home he was no longer able to urinate, except  eventually in very small quantities and with excruciating pain"

Edited June 8, 2015 by LisaL

[CraigD]

It’s not likely, and it’s nowhere suggested in the Wikipedia article to which you link, that Tycho Brahe died of a ruptured bladder.

 

Human and most other species’ bladders are very strong and stretchy, so even in cases where the tube that drains them (the urethra) becomes completely blocked – a not uncommon situation usually caused by the formation of mostly calcium crystals (calculi) – the bladder is rarely or never injured. In this popsci.com article, a Urologist suggests it’s possible only when a bladder has been weakened by surgery, cancer or radiation. Bladders can be torn or cut by hard blows or stabbings, but this is rare, because they’re well-protected by the pelvic bone.

 

What will kill you when the urethra is blocked and the bladder unable to empty is the that the tubes connecting the kidneys to the bladder (the ureters) become unable to overcome the pressure, urine accumulates in the kidneys, and the kidneys slow or completely stop removing waste from the blood. Once this happens, causes of death range from system wide infection (sepsis), to respiratory failure due to fluid accumulating in the lungs to heart failure to “multi-organ” failure, a medical term for pretty much everything going wrong at once.

 

My guess is that Tycho likely died of slowly progressing renal disease, complaining of the pain only when it reached final crisis. Some of the weirder speculation is that his kidneys were slowly poisoned by some material in or used to attach his artificial nose, having lost his original at age 20 in a sword duel!

[LisaL]

I've heard of alcohol causing rupture, without trauma

Basically they can't feel the urge to go, so the bladder fills and ruptures